


The Fact that You're Alive is a Miracle

by Catharrrsis



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 07:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5777164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catharrrsis/pseuds/Catharrrsis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The fact that you're alive is a miracle."<br/><i>"Why do people keep saying that?!"</i></p><p>---</p><p>This is my first time being part of a fan community, so I would love feedback or criticism!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fact that You're Alive is a Miracle

The first time Eliza says it, the words are like a punch to the gut.  
“Look at where you are. Look at where you started. The fact that you’re alive is a miracle.”  
He’s been complaining to her for the umpteenth time about Washington’s refusal to give him a command of his own, and she’s looking at him with mingled sympathy and amusement.  
_The fact that he’s alive is a miracle?_  
For years now, he’s allowed himself to trust that Eliza doesn’t care about his origins--doesn’t care that he never had tutors or etiquette dinners or trips to France, that he grew up poor in the Caribbean.  
But now he wonders. The fact that he’s alive is a miracle--so don’t push it? Don’t aim for greatness, because it’s a wonder he got this far?  
Every fiber of his body cringes at the idea that he should settle for average because he came from less. That sky-high ambition is for the likes of George Clinton or Robert Howe, because they have money in the family and potential running through their blood like oxygen. That people like Alexander should stick to clerking and correspondence. He grits his teeth.  
But when he looks up at Eliza, he realizes he’s misunderstood. There’s no pity there, only concern. Hamilton’s anger melts. For all her caring, his wife has never understood why his background makes it more imperative, not less, that he succeed on the battlefield as he has with the quill. But that is because she simply loves him, not as a bastard orphan but as a husband.  
Hamilton sighs and rubs Eliza’s shoulder, kissing her growing belly with their futures nestled inside of it.  
“Apparently, my darling, the General agrees with you.” If he’s to be away from the army, he may as well take the time to appreciate what he has.

\---

For six months, Hamilton does just that. And when Philip is born, he almost understands what Eliza had meant by her earlier comment--“miracle” is the only word that seems to fit his newborn son.  
But a message soon comes from Yorktown: the command he’s always wanted is his, and the General requests his presence immediately. He bids wife and son farewell with a kiss on the cheek, and readies for war.

\---

Fall leaves crunch underfoot as Hamilton dismounts and leads his horse into camp. It’s late afternoon but already the light is dying; time, as always, slips away before he can catch it. With a calming breath, he reminds himself: this is to be his shot.  
Hamilton stables his exhausted mount. Then, boots still smeared with traveler’s grime, he pushes aside the canvas entrance to the command tent. General Washington is there conferring lightly with Major Lafayette.  
They haven’t noticed him yet, but Hamilton has barely moved to speak when he hears Washington’s off-hand comment: “Frankly, the fact that he’s alive is a miracle.”  
Lafayette chuckles agreement and murmurs an inaudible response.  
_Again?_ A chill runs down Hamilton’s spine as he coughs to make his presence known, and the two men’s reactions make it obvious they were talking about him. Have they been speaking to Eliza?  
But when Washington and Lafayette recover from their surprise, their faces light up at the sight of their returning friend. Hamilton can’t help but smile in turn. Washington beckons him over, and the stars are out by the time they have finished discussing the details of his new command.

\---

After the battle, though, Hamilton confesses the incident to Laurens. Maybe it’s the danger they’ve just overcome at Yorktown, or maybe it’s the way nagging thoughts of the phrase have been spoiling what should be the thrill of victory. Either way, he finds himself ranting in hushed tones in their tent that night, long after even the sounds of the soldiers’ revelry have faded.  
“I mean, no one ever says ‘the fact that Aaron Burr is alive is a miracle!’” What started as a low hiss has become a near-shout by the end of the sentence. Laurens grins. Sensing his friend’s imminent sarcasm, Hamilton thwarts it with a dismissive wave. “Or you, or Mulligan, or...or Betsy Ross. They only say it about _me_.”  
Laurens’ smile fades, and he considers for a long moment before shrugging. “No one else can do what you do, Hamilton. I mean, from Washington’s perspective, your oratorical skills _have_ been a godsend. And you know Lafayette relied on you in the field today. You were brilliant.”  
When Hamilton only grunts, Laurens lays a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Don’t fret over it. Just take the compliment.”

\---

It’s eight years later that Hamilton, now Secretary of the Treasury, bids his family and sister-in-law goodbye as they head upstate for the summer. Eliza and Angelica have been begging him to join them all week, but Hamilton declines every offer--he can barely sit through dinner without intrusive thoughts of capital and interest rates spoiling his meal, much less take months away from his work. In a last bid for his company, Eliza has resorted to needling him: “Alexander, the fact that you’re alive is a miracle!”  
She knows it gets to him, even if she doesn’t know why, and she’s been bringing up the jibe at every opportunity to show her displeasure. Even the children have begun to catch on, though they understand the phrase even less. Now, with the family about to depart, Eliza has just about given up on Alexander’s joining them--but, mischievous, she whispers the phrase to him one last time as she kisses him farewell.  
_Two can play at that_ , Hamilton thinks. Returning his wife’s kiss, he adopts a baffled expression, eyes wide. Only a twitch at the corner of his mouth marks his statement as anything but sincere.  
“Eliza,” he says piously, “all of our lives are miracles granted us by God Almighty.”  
If scathing looks could be bottled, Hamilton reflects, the cabinet debate would be over in an hour, for not a man in government could withstand the glare Eliza shoots him then.

\---

Another four years later, on the warm streets of New York, Aaron Burr is walking engrossed in legal debate with Hamilton when a carriage knocks the man clean off his feet. Hamilton sprawls dazed in the gutter as the driver pulls to a stop and blinks down at him.  
“Sorry sir, so sorry sir,” the coachman mumbles, visibly shaken.  
Burr is about to rebuke him when the carriage’s wealthy passenger leans out the window to appraise her dusty victim. She peers down and tsks. “The fact that you’re alive is a miracle.”  
Before Burr or Hamilton can retort, they pull away, and Burr hoists his disheveled colleague to his feet.  
“Are you well, Hamilton?” he asks.  
_“Why do people keep saying that?!”_  
Burr raises an eyebrow. “Pardon?”  
Hamilton wipes dirt off his trousers, completely unshaken by his brush with death, then turns to Burr and seizes him by the collar. “‘The fact that you’re alive is a miracle?’ Why do people keep saying that?”  
And Hamilton pours out the tale, passionate hand motions punctuating baffling chronological leaps as Burr guides him gently but firmly towards their offices, one diligent eye on the Mercer Street traffic.  
“And you know who else said it? _Maria Reynolds_.” Hamilton’s voice drops to a whisper as he hisses the name, and Burr finally manages to get a word in edgewise.  
“Hamilton, slow down. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Privately he begins to wonder if the near-accident has left Hamilton concussed, but the man appears unscathed and his pupils are normal.  
Hamilton begins again, this time with slightly more care, although his tone is if anything more fervent than it had been during their aborted legal debate.  
“Then, Maria. I told her about my history, you know; just once. How my mother’s husband left her high and dry just the same way Reynolds abandoned her. She kissed me--”  
“Spare me the details,” Burr interrupts.  
“--kissed me and said, ‘the fact that you’re alive is a miracle.’” Hamilton turns to Burr, a bit breathless now, and implores him: “Tell me, doesn’t that seem strange?”  
Though Hamilton has been the one talking, the dizzying display almost has Burr feeling off-balance. Then again, it’s no more than the passion Hamilton brings to their court cases, to the matter of the Constitution, or indeed, to the merits of blackberry jam over the strawberry variety. Burr rolls his eyes as he fumbles the key into his office lock.  
“Perhaps,” he suggests, opening the door, “They are all marveling that a man foolish enough to walk in front of a carriage has managed to evade death lo these many years.”  
There’s a small silence. Burr turns to see Hamilton glowering at him.  
“You’re really bothered by this, aren’t you?” he realizes.  
Hamilton, though, drops the subject, and they take up their legal debate anew.

\---

The next month, Thomas Jefferson invites Burr, Madison, and a few other prominent senators to sit in on a cabinet debate. Burr’s just an observer, but it’s damn close to being in the room where it happens, and the topic is important: Britain and France are once again on the verge of war. The infant United States must make a choice between the great European powers.  
The night’s debate is a lively proceeding, all fire and brimstone and complicated political allusions that even Burr barely keeps up with, scratching away with his quill with one hand while flipping through several legal tomes with the other. He half-fears that, were he to straighten from his writing, he might find himself clipped by a whizzing verbal bullet or some stray rhetorical shrapnel.  
Washington, as usual, stands above it all. His hair is grayer than when Burr saw him last, but it mainly adds to his gravitas as he listens carefully to his advisors’ discussion.  
Finally, after three non-stop hours, it’s over. The debaters’ throats are parched, Burr has filled six sheets of parchment front and back with notes, and the President has elected to align himself, and by extension the nation, with Hamilton’s Anglophilic faction. Washington departs with a few murmured words to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who nods solemnly but begins to positively _seethe_ when the President has left the room. Burr’s inkwell nearly tips as Jefferson slams a palm to the table.  
“Hamilton, some days I want to throttle you,” he says abruptly, shoving his chair backwards.  
The Treasurer seems unsurprised at this display of vitriol, flashing a maddening smile. “The feeling is mutual, Secretary Jefferson,” he replies calmly, “but I simply remind myself that your ego is inflated enough without me to squeeze your head further.”  
Burr sucks in a breath, and beside him James Madison bristles.  
“Unfortunately, Secretary Hamilton,” Madison demures, “few but the English would agree with your opinion of Jefferson, while I suspect a number of our countrymen would concur with his of you.” He pauses. “In fact, it’s a wonder nobody in Congress or elsewhere has strangled you yet.” Before Hamilton can respond, Madison turns to Burr, the last Democratic Republican at the table. “Wouldn’t you agree, Senator?”  
Burr purses his lips. “A wonder indeed,” he says, glancing across the room. He smiles wide, then, and finds his reward as dawning horror replaces the cocky look on Hamilton’s face. Burr pastes an expression of total innocence on his own. “Honestly, Secretary,” he drawls, carefully straightening his papers, “the fact that you’re alive is a miracle.”  
The collision of Hamilton’s forehead with the oak table makes a satisfying thump.

**Author's Note:**

>  **In real life:**  
>  Hamilton and Eliza Schuyler fell in love and married in 1780, only around a year before Yorktown--so he didn’t have “many years” to learn to trust her.  
> Philip Hamilton was born in 1782, the year after Yorktown, rather than before.  
> The Reynolds Pamphlet was published in 1797, after Hamilton was no longer Secretary of the Treasury, with the scandal unfolding near the end of the Washington and start of the Adams administrations. Even in the show, it comes well after Cabinet Battle #2. No excuse here, I just changed it to suit my needs.  
> By the time of the cabinet battle, Congress was meeting in Philadelphia, not New York City, as a temporary arrangement following the deal in The Room Where It Happens. I just think the New York flavor is strong in the musical and I wanted to maintain that.  
> Senators do not attend cabinet meetings.
> 
>  **Other fun and not-so-fun facts:**  
>  The first scene corresponds to That Would Be Enough, when Eliza first delivers the line, while the ‘eight years’ time jump takes us to Take a Break and the subsequent four year jump to Cabinet Battle #2. The Reynolds Pamphlet has magically been moved to take place between these latter two songs.  
> I chose George Clinton and Robert Howe by browsing wikipedia descriptions of Revolutionary officers until I found some that seemed rich.  
> Aaron Burr actually might have been familiar with the terminology ‘concussion,’ since the word came into use as early as the 16th century.  
> Burr would likely not have needed to be ‘spared the details’ of the Reynolds affair, since he had represented Maria Reynolds during her divorce from her husband, and since the pamphlet in question quoted most of the pair’s love letters verbatim.
> 
>  
> 
> As I mentioned, I’ve never been involved in a fanfic community before and I’m excited to join this one. I welcome criticism, even/especially small or subtle things like word choice, tone, and pacing. Thanks for reading!


End file.
